Sermon (Fr. Peay) February 25, 2018

“For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

            One of my very favorite films is “A Man for All Seasons.” Written by Robert Bolt, the film is based on the life of Thomas More and chronicles his relationship with Henry VIII – it’s a brilliant film. There is a scene where More is confronted by his accusers at his trial, and one in particular, Sir Richard Rich, perjures himself and accuses More of treason. Rich had recently been appointed as Attorney General for Wales and was wearing the appropriate chain of office – embossed with a red dragon. Sir Thomas More asks Rich what the chain is for and, on being told says, “For Wales? Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Wales?”

            As I look at the situation of our nation and the world I suppose we could fill-in the response with any number of things, couldn’t we? How many people have sold their souls, ruined themselves and their families, in the pursuit of profit, or of political power? How many people have sold themselves to get ahead, only to discover that they’re not even close to being ahead. The tragedy of the human condition is when we simply forget who we are and then try to “gain the whole world” to fill the hole in us that can only be filled by right relationship with the God in whose image and likeness we are made.

            I so appreciate what contemporary spiritual writer Cynthia Bourgealt has to say in her wonderful book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. She writes, “Jesus taught from the conviction that we human beings are victims of a tragic case of mistaken identity. The person I normally take myself to be—that busy, anxious little “I” so preoccupied with its goals, fears, desires, and issues—is never even remotely the whole of who I am, and to seek the fulfillment of my life at this level means to miss out on the bigger life. This is why, according to his teaching, the one who tries to keep his “life”

(i. e., the small one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to lose it will find the real thing.” God’s way of helping us not to lose sight of the real thing, of the bigger picture, of the real life to which we are all called – and for which we were all destined – is the covenant.

            What we see in the reading from Genesis is the beginning of that covenant relationship. When God extends the promise of relationship to Abram and to his descendants, which the Romans reading reminds us includes us. What, then, is a covenant? A covenant is a solemn promise made binding by an oath. The oath may be either verbal or symbolic. The oath demonstrated the actor's obligation in making good the promise. The covenant-concept was quite prevalent in the ancient near East, but there are profound differences between those and the Hebrew idea of covenant. Typically a covenant is a bi-lateral arrangement; this is not the case with that entered into by God and Abram and what will become the nation of Israel. The covenant is seen as a gift God makes to the people, which takes the covenant-relationship beyond the level of a contract into that of a bond of communion. The Dutch Old Testament scholar, Theodore Vriezen, has said, "the Covenant between God and the people did not bring these two 'partners' into a contract-relation, but into a communion, originating with God, in which Israel was bound to him completely and made dependent upon him."  To put it into the most basic terms – it’s a relationship.

            While God sacrifices none of his holiness, he extends participation in that holiness to his people. The people may violate the covenant, may depart from the covenant, but they are forever marked by its effect. The implications of this communion are made even more profound when considered in the light of the Old Testament understanding of humanity made in the "image and likeness of God" (Genesis 1:26ff). Or, in the words of the Psalmist: "what is man that thou art mindful of him?. . .Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:4-5). The covenant brings a dignity to humans called into this relationship that is far more than any mere contractual arrangement could ever bring.

            In the person, the life, and the work of Jesus Christ the covenant-concept is raised to a new level, as is the divine-human relationship. The law of love becomes the definitive standard for the Christian community, since it was by demonstrating this law in his act of absolute self-giving on the cross that the Christ brought salvation. This is Paul's point when he talks about how it was in faith that Abraham became the father of many nations and reckoned to him as righteousness. It is through our faith in this new covenant made in Jesus that will bring us to that same righteousness and bring us back into the relationship for which we were destined. As Paul says, “Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him,’ were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.”

            What is more, in the covenant of grace God pursued fallen humanity and brought it back to its original situation. Here the individual believer is given a new dignity, like the dignity given to all of Israel. The relationship entered into by God and a particular person in the covenant of grace implied a relationship between all those who had entered into the covenant, which is undertaken through Baptism. This is why we renew it each year at Easter time.

            The covenant, then, reminds us that there is such a thing as a common good, that there is a bigger picture and of which we are a part of it.. It is very important for us to remember that what happened with Abram, later Abraham, was that God took an individual and brought a people into being. It wasn’t about Abram, it was about God’s gift of relationship and the widening of that relationship from a single family to a much, much wider picture.

            So we have to remind ourselves again and again that our life in faith, our growth in spirituality isn’t ultimately about our own self-satisfaction or our own self-fulfillment. Rather, it’s about being part of the bigger picture and finding our true selves in that relationship. As William Neil points out in his book, The Difficult Sayings of Jesus: “It

has been clear to every martyr what Jesus meant when he said: ‘What does a man gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self?’ or in the more familiar words of the King James Version: ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ For them ‘the whole world’ meant home and family, security and a peaceful life. All of this they were ready to sacrifice rather than be false to their commitment to Christ. It would have meant for them, as the author of Hebrews says, ‘crucifying the Son of God again—and making mock of his death’ (Heb. 6:6).… Self-sacrifice, self-denial, and self-giving are the hallmarks of our true selves, the men and women that God means us to be. This is the abundant life to which Jesus calls us, compared with which worldly success, fame, and fortune are tawdry baubles, which end with our bodies in the grave. But a life lived in the spirit of Christ will never die. It has a quality that is eternal.”

            God’s response to our self-focused condition is to extend God’s self to us through the covenant; a covenant, a relationship which was put into flesh in the person of Jesus the Christ. God’s response to our condition tells us just how much we’re valued. How do we respond to God’s invitation to covenant relationship? How do we demonstrate that we see a picture with a focus larger than ourselves? Perhaps by living as freely toward God as God has lived toward us in Christ? What does it profit……

Sermon (Fr. Cunningham) February 25, 2018

    If there is a theme which runs through today's readings that theme would seem to be that God's ways are not our ways.  Today we hear of Abraham learning at the age of ninety-nine that he is going to start having a family.  In Paul's letter to the Romans we get a further reminder of that miraculous feat and then in the Gospel lesson we learn just how things are going to end up for Jesus, which is the whole being crucified and rising again business.  Now if I were writing a book and wanted to explain the birth of a great nation I probably would not start with a ninety-nine year old dude nor would I create a messiah who gets crucified.  And the reason I probably would not do this is because it just sounds so odd and no one would find it believable.  Human instinct says that when you start a nation you need to find some young virile individuals and if you are going to have a messiah they should be triumphant types, riding at the head of an army, not getting themselves nailed to a tree.  And so what should we take from this?  How are we to understand a God who does things differently than we do?  And how should this impact our lives?

    Such a discussion should probably start with just what we mean by the word "differently."  In the examples we have today, God acts in ways that we would not intuitively act, which seems as good of definition as any.  But the question that this raises is why wouldn't we act as God acts.  For the answer I am tempted to throw down the standard church response of sin and move on.  And honestly it is not a bad answer but it does need some further refinement.  The sin part of the explanation helps us partially understand why we would not pick a ninety-nine year old man for an important task or have a crucified messiah.  And the partial thing that it explains is that we as humans often look to characteristics that are not the most important ones.  We deal with the superficial rather than the whole.  A good example of this comes from the Old Testament.  Think back to the story of Saul.  The Israelites decided they wanted a king and then they decided on Saul to be their king, largely because he was really good looking - I mean you can't have a king that looks like a toad can you?  But of course he turned out to be a lousy king.  Sin blinded the Israelites to the things that God sees and made them choose someone who was a disaster.  Similarly, when Peter rebukes Jesus for having the gall to not act the way he believed a Messiah should act he is again looking at the wrong things.  He is looking at what he wanted the Messiah to look like, rather than understanding what God was doing. 

The sin in both of these instances is humanity putting its will over and above God's will.  And this is really the beginning of all sin, when we think we have a better idea than God.  And when we think we have a better idea than God we generally will miss what God is actually doing.  But I don't want this to be a "shame on you" type sermon where I tell you to be less sinful so that you can understand what God is doing, rather I want it to be an invitation for all of us to walk into some of the beauty and wonder that is God.  To look for the miraculous and to see the ways God manifests himself in our everyday life.  Because seeing God in this world is ultimately a more wonderful and more beautiful way to live.  Today Peter could not see the beautiful act of sacrifice that Jesus was explaining to him because he had preconceived notions of what the Messiah should do.  And if Peter had gotten his way and prevented Jesus from dying and rising again things would look very different for us today and by that I mean that the world would look pretty bleak because we would be without the whole salvation thing, but we can talk about that more on Easter.  Let's return to today's topic and ask how can we better see the beauty and wonder that might be right in front of us.  Well, let me offer three suggestions and those suggestions are to slow down, to keep our minds on heavenly things and to be grateful.  This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but just some things to think about and practice.

    The first thing that that I mentioned is that we could slow down.  And I realize the term "slow down" can be taken in a number of ways, but what I want to talk about it in terms of our mental processes.  Today Peter did not stop to listen and comprehend what Jesus was actually saying, but instead raced right into chastising him for not fitting into a category that Peter understood.  This is obviously not just a problem for Peter, our brains are wondrous and marvelous things but they can also do lots of stupid stuff (I spent four years in a fraternity so I know this all too well).  There is something in psychology known as heuristics (here-is-tics).  This is basically the study of mental shortcuts.  And what the term mental shortcuts means is that our minds will take previously learned knowledge and sort of shoehorn reality into that mode of thinking.  A trivial example of this happened to me years ago when we bought a new toaster.  Our old toaster was white and longish while our new toaster was black and sort of squat.  For months after I would look in the cupboard and be unable to find the toaster that was right in from of me because my brain had built a mental shortcut to look for a long white object, not something with the characteristics of a toaster, because long and white was the easier thing to see and took less mental energy.  Sometimes we need these mental shortcuts, like if we are being chased by a lion, but sometimes they prevent us from seeing something that is right in front of us, like my elusive toaster that was in plain sight.  We sometimes need to slow down and engage our brains to see what is really in front of us, not just see the thing for which we are looking.  Prayer, meditating on scripture and Bible study can all help us attain these "new eyes".  And what we might see with these "new eyes" is what God is actually doing.   

    The second thing that I would recommend is to think on heavenly things.  My reference for this comes from what I find to be one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible and it comes from Paul's letter to the Philippians.  It states, "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  Our minds tend to want to go to places that are more in the non-praiseworthy category.  If you don't believe me watch one of those shows on cable news where people yell at each other or read the comments section on most websites.  But our minds do not have to go to the lowest common denominator; they can be raised and exalted to the heavenly things.  They can think on the things that are of God

    The last thing to think about is to be grateful.  To give thanks every day for all of the blessings in our life.  Gratitude helps us enlarge our view of life and it helps to fill us with joy.  The other thing that gratitude does is it takes us out of the center of the universe.  People who are ungrateful tend to see themselves as the arbiters of the entire world.  They judge what is right and wrong.  Grateful people see things as gifts, allowing them to be free to experience the joys in life and to see the things that are beautiful and wondrous. 

In Isaiah 55 we hear this, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  These verses are not a call to throw in the towel and say that we will never have higher thoughts but are rather a call heavenward.  While it is certainly true that we will never be God, our goal should always be to reach higher, to ascribe to be more like God.  And part of becoming more like God is to better understand him and see what he is doing.  Some of it may seem odd at first because it can be different from what we usually see on earth, but it is the best thing.  In the person of Jesus Christ God has stooped down to us so that we may reach up to him.  Doing this will take changing some of our normal behavior but ultimately it will be a more wonderful and more beautiful way to live on this earth.  We sometimes miss things that God is doing and believe that it is because God is not doing anything.  But the case is often that we are simply missing it, because we are looking for or seeing something else.  But to see the beauty and wonder that is around us we step outside of ourselves and reach up to God so that we may be God's both now and forevermore.   

Sermon (Fr. Cunningham) February 18, 2018

I assume the main reason we hear of Jesus' forty days of temptation in the wilderness today is because we have entered into the forty days of Lent.  Seeing patterns like this must be a testament to my education, so chalk one up for the Fresno Unified School District.  Anyway, Mark's version of the temptation is, as is usual with Mark, a little light on the details, he says only that, "He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him."  In the other Gospels we pick up facts like that of Jesus fasting while he was in the wilderness and the exact nature of the temptations.  But let's stick with Mark today and not fill in any extra information.  And so what I would like to do is take a few moments and focus on the fact that Jesus was tempted and, in more practical terms, to focus on the fact that we are tempted as well.  For based on personal experience I can with a clean conscience state that I and I assume the rest of you are very susceptible to temptation.  After all if it were not tempting it probably would not be called temptation.

    So let's start by getting a definition.  Generally speaking and in the context of what we hear today, temptation is something that takes us away from living our lives in the ways that God calls us to live them.  But beyond explaining the word in such general terms, temptation is very hard to define at the granular level, because it varies from situation to situation.  If you were dying of thirst you would be more tempted to make moral compromises to find water than you would if you were sitting next to one of these giant pallets of water that seem to be everywhere around here.  And it is not just situational because different things tempt different people.  As John Donne put it, "Other men's crosses are not my crosses."  For example, I have never found anything remotely interesting about gambling.  You could put me into the middle of a casino and I would come out the other end with the same amount of money as I went in (and maybe even a free drink if I was lucky).  Yet I have known some addictive gamblers.  I worked for a guy when I was in college who would drive to Reno from the Bay Area and the first thing he did when he got there was fill up his car with gas because he knew that he would not have any money by the time he departed.  And I know this is a rather silly example, but I simply want to point out that we can all be lured away by various and sundry things.  And we should not assume that because we are not susceptible to temptations that get a lot of attention that we are not susceptible to any temptations.  Our temptations may be on the top ten list or they may be something seemingly benign, but when they draw us away from the one true God they are detrimental for us or at least not the best thing for us.

    Since we are in the season of Lent I want to talk about something that may appear unrelated at first, but stick with me for a minute.  In the season of Lent people often give up something that they enjoy, like chocolate or soda.  In recent years there has been a move in some quarters to pick up something rather than to put something down.  So, for example, I might try to regularly visit a shut in or try to be kinder.  And I am not opposed to this idea of picking something up, but I think sometimes the motivation for doing this comes from a misunderstanding of why we give up something in the first place.  The first reason why people give things up in Lent is in imitation of Christ.  He fasted for forty days and so in a smaller way we are fasting from something.  But there is a second reason and one which I think we can forget these days in which our every desire and whim can be met almost instantaneously, and this second reason is that it strengthens our resolve, showing that there is nothing more important to us then God.  Having to say no now and then in little things can be an important practice. 

    There is the old story of the smoker who said that, "quitting smoking is easy I have done it hundreds of times."  We laugh at the ridiculousness of this story because we know that this particular smoker has never actually quit.  And so while I am not saying that everyone needs to give up something for Lent, what I am saying is that now and then it might not be a bad thing to work on strengthening our will.  To say no to something that we want so that our will might be stronger when severe temptation comes.

Think about it like this, we exercise so that we are healthier and able to do certain things when required.  And so following this logic it might not be a terrible idea if we worked on resisting temptation now and then so that when we really needed it, that ability would not be flabby and out of shape.  It is interesting that in terms of physical fitness it seems very logical to exercise in ways that do not necessarily reflect things that we do in real life.  And so when we exercise we do things like lift weights or swing a kettlebells none of which are part of anyone's job description as best I know.  And for many good reasons, we believe that seemingly odd forms of exercise translate into making us better physical specimens, and better at performing tasks in our daily lives.  However, we tend not to follow this same line of reasoning when it comes to our moral lives.  But is that really wise?  Does showing some discipline and the ability to resist temptation in something small ultimately lead to our ability to do the same with something large?  I would argue that it does because the only people who truly know the power of temptation are those who have been able to resist it.  If I drop my diet every time someone offers me a cookie, I really don't know what it takes to be on a diet, because I really have never been on one.

    C.S. Lewis one time said something interesting (well he said lots of interesting things but anyway).  He said in discussing the ways we rationalize our behaviors that you often hear people say that whatever less than admirable thing they did was not so bad because it was not like they had killed a million people like Hitler or Stalin.  His retort to that was that what the person was saying was true but by the same token that same person had never been given the opportunity to kill a million people.  Most of the time we will be tempted with more mundane things in this life, things that will not be earth shattering.  And if you don't want to believe me or C.S. Lewis about the importance of small things listen to the words of Jesus in the Parable of the talents.  He says of the servant who took the money that was given him and doubled it, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master."  And yes I know this parable was not strictly about temptation, but it shows some of the scalability of the Kingdom of God.  God is happy when we do things correctly whether they are large or small.  The key is that we are faithful to him when we are doing them. 

    And so while in some sense the resisting of temptation may be a bit false in Lent in that we sort of cook up our own temptations to resist, the idea in our walk with God is to resist temptation no matter how small those temptations seem to be.  Some temptations are seemingly very bad, but even the small ones take us away from doing the best thing.  And so my encouragement during this season of Lent is for us to leave it a little better than we entered it.  For some this may be a massive change, but for others it might be something seemingly innocuous.  But any time that a piece of us returns to God there is rejoicing in heaven.  And so while we could say that resisting these small temptations does not matter we could also look at them as low hanging fruit.  There are small things that we could resist which will draw us closer to God - that is kind of nice.  Being a Christian does not have to be hard work all the time but requires us to be like the servant and to be faithful in the small things so that we may be God's both now and forevermore.